Shakespeare’s Roman Shades (Titus Andronicus and Titus)

Abstract

The human species developed its brain parts and their functions over a long, evolutionary time frame. Using the same cerebral structures in the much briefer timeframe of human history, Euro-American culture has emphasized a more and more independent ego in the mind and society, with democratic rights, capitalist free markets, and consumer choices. A crucial turning point for the modern ego came in the European Renaissance, with its rejection of medieval submission to the Christian God and cosmic order, stressing instead that “man is the measure of all things.”